"rior rests here, he will say, and my fame shall "live in his praise." Such being their design, would not those who constructed them naturally choose such materials for their formation as should be most likely to excite enquiry, by most powerfully striking the eye, and attracting attention? To those who dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Wiltshire temples, a material of this kind presented itself, the best calculated for the purpose that can possibly be imagined; the white chalk of the downs, which, piled into a heap, would be visible from afar, and opposed to the verdant turf that covered the surface of the plain, would form a contrast as agreeable as it was conspicuous. Hence arose, as I conceive, the numerous tumuli scattered over this wide expanse. In Cornwall, on the other hand, chalk was unknown, as their hills were only abundant in stones; and to these alone could they have recourse for materials to immortalize the memory of the departed. Instead therefore of heaping up barrows, which would have been difficult to raise from the scantiness of the soil, and invisible at a distance from the dinginess of their colour, they constructed those carns or aggestions of stones, which occur in such numbers on all the hills, and thus left memorials of their heroes and priests, which, if not so beautiful at first as the barrows of chalk, will outlive these

more perishable sepulchral monuments, and last as long as time shall endure.

We had ridden within two miles of Redruth, when a miner directed us to ascend a rising ground to the left, for the sake of a view. We found it worth the trouble of a deviation from the road, for it not only gave us a great command of the country around, but enabled us to embrace at the same moment the North and South Sea; an unbounded prospect both of the Bristol and British Channels.

The Cornish topographers, with a very pardonable degree of that vanity which characterizes provincial writers, and leads them to attribute as high antiquity as possible to the objects of their antiquarian researches, have carried back the origin of REDRUTH to the times of Druidism. But alas! how vain are the labours of the etymologists; and how weak those structures which are erected upon the fancied similarity of names. Behold, with what ease the hypotheses of Borlase and Pryce are scalped, hamstrung, and afterwards dashed to atoms, by the tomahawk of Whitaker.

this

"The chapel," says historical polemic, "as it is called, I consider as "the original church of the parish, and the original 66 cause of the town. The church was fixed here: "Its parsonage-house accompanied it and the

"latter, I suppose, was called Redruth, or (as the "real name of the town appears to be from some "writings in the hands of the lord, Sir F. Basset) "Dredruith. This name, however, was not given "it or the town, we may be sure, as Dr. Pryce fondly imagines, from Dre-Druith, the Druid's "town; though this (he alleges) it undoubtedly "signifies from its vicinity to Carn Brea, that cele

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brated station of Druidical superstition.' How "such a station could give name to a town two miles

off, the limping faith of un-initiated antiquaries "will find it difficult to say. Nor does the word "Druid, though once the most respectable in all "the British vocabulary, retain any marks of honour "in any dialect of the British at present. Christ

ianity has swept away all the heathen ideas of the "name: and the word now is stampt only with "the impressions of magic and of whoredom; that "referring to the knowledge of the Druids, and this "to the matrimonial clubs of them and their vota"ries. Thus, Dryi, Dryith is rendered by Mr.

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Lhuyd a sorcerer; Draoi is properly a Druid, "but now an augur, a charmer, or magician; Draoi, "Dheacd, or Draoidheacta, is properly the "Druidish form of worship, but now magic or "sorcery; Droide-achd, is sorcery, divination, "magic; and Druadh is a charmer or magician.

"All these involuntary acknowledgments of knowledge in the Druids, however, are confined to the Irish. The Welsh and the Cornish are not so ingenious. They know of nothing, but the lasci"viousness of the Druids and their followers. "Druathaim is to commit fornication; Drioth, a

cr

harlot, or other unchaste person; Drutharnutog, "a bawd; Druthlanu, a bawdy-house; and Drutiir, a fornicator; Drythyll, lascivious, wanton, leche. rous; Drythyllwoh, wantonness, lasciviousnes, "lechery, lust; Druov, a Druid; Druth, a harlot ;

and Drythyll, bucksome, gamesome. In this "view of the word Druid, Dre-druith, as meaning "Druid's town, must either have been so called "before Christianity was settled here, or have been "so denominated in an abusive sense. But as it is "no Roman-British town, it could not have been "one before Christianity. And the town will not "allow itself to be considered as a town of magi"cians or a town of harlots. If indeed it was not, "as it certainly was not, a town before Christianity, "it could have no relation to the Druids, either in "an abusive or a complimentary sense. And it "must have been called Dre-druth, from the chan"nel on which it stood; Dre-trot signifying "the house on the bed or channel of the river. "This name is so very ancient,' says Dr. Pryce,

"as to be given to the situation of the town,' and "consequently to some house upon or near it, "before this kingdom was divided into parishes,' "and therefore in the time of the Druids, if it " means the Druid's town; as old writings express "thus: in the parish of Uny (St. Uny) juxta "Dredruith.' The town is not Roman-British, and "must therefore be of the middle ages. The parish "is older than the town, because the town was not "made the centre of it. But the parish itself could "never be denominated as 'juxta Dredruith;' because "Redruth was a part of it. Nothing can possibly "be described, as situate near itself. But the small

church, which from its smallness Mr. Tonkin has "called a chapel, and which became so on the erec"tion of a larger for the town and parish, might "and would be so described. And the parish is "called in old writings that of Uny [St. Uny]

the

juxta Dredruith,' the parish of the church of "St. Uny near Redruth; in contradistinction from "Uny-Lelant, of which (as Leland says) “❝ toune of Lannant is praty, the church thereof is "of St. Unine;' (v. iii. p. 21;) just as we have "the parish and church of Lanteglos juxta Fowey, "and the parish and church of Lanteglos juxta "Camelford. Though the parish is now,' Dr. "Pryce himself tells us, and has been immemori